“This was a huge assignment, to identify someone to succeed Paul, given his long, long tenure and the success he’s had,” said OSF board president Rudd Johnson, who also served as chairman of the executive search committee. Nicholson has been with the company since 1980, starting as general manager before adding executive director duties in 1995.

In Rider, Johnson says the organization has hired one of the rising stars in the realm of American theater, with the broad skill set and engaging personality to be good fit in Ashland, where she’ll work closely with artistic director Bill Rauch.

“She has a palpable passion for theater and the arts -- she started her career as an actor,” Johnson says. “And she supports that passion with her skills as an administrator. She has strong experience in development, in financial management, in promoting diversity and inclusion. Everyone who met her from the search committee and the staff was very taken with her warmth, her wit and her courage of conviction. She’s a great cultural fit with the festival.”

Rider has been in her current post since 2009, following five years as K.C. Rep’s associate director for advancement and administration. An OSF press release about her hiring praised her accomplishments in Kansas City, including “raising over $7 million for a capital/endowment campaign to inaugurate the Rep’s second stage, re-branding the theatre under artistic director Eric Rosen, launching an ambitious five-year strategic plan for the organization and expansion of new work development.”

A Kansas City native, Rider earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston University, and studied business in a post-graduate program at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. She started her working life as a member of the resident acting company at the Alley Theatre in Houston from 1985-’87, but later took jobs in the business realm for companies such as Mitsubishi.

Her return to the arts came in the late 1990s with an offer to return to her hometown as executive director of Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey (“the only official second home of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater”).

At Kansas City Rep, Rider was part of a regional theater company roughly the same size as Portland Center Stage, with two theaters and a 2012-13 budget of $7.3 million. By contrast, OSF is one of the biggest non-profit theaters in the country, with a 2012 budget of more than $30 million and a repertory schedule of unmatched complexity.

The change in organizational size won’t be an issue for Rider, Johnson says. Because of OSF’s stature, “most potential candidates are going to be coming from smaller theaters” as a matter of course, Johnson points out. “Her track record, intellect, leadership skills and overall competencies lend themselves well to OSF.”

Rider has big footsteps to fill following Nicholson, but might well do so in different shoes, so to speak. In recent interviews, several OSF staffers have suggested that the shape of the executive director job likely would change for Nicholson’s successor, in part because Nicholson carries such a large portfolio of responsibilities.

“Paul is unique in the world of theater in that he was general manager and then assumed the role of executive director while keeping the duties of general manager,” Johnson says. The board hasn’t decided on any changes to the organization’s managerial structure, and any such adjustments will be made in consultation with Rider.